The Hamond Educational Charity
Nicholas Hamond lived at High House, Westacre, and was Lord of the Manor of Swaffham. In his will of 1724 he bequeathed the sum of £1000 to build and endow a school for twenty boys on the old Camping Land behind Swaffham Church. He asked for £500 to be used immediately to erect a building for a master and his family and a school room for instructing and teaching twenty boys. £500 was to be invested and the interest used to provide for the master. He left a further £500 intended to provide a place where twenty poor persons could work at a trade but the money was not enough to provide for this. The remaining £500 was invested in property.
Nicholas Hamond died in 1725 and was buried in the north transept of the church of St. Peter & St. Paul, Swaffham. The school was duly built and was ready to admit the first boys in 1736. Among the first trustees of the educational trust set up as a result of Nicholas Hamond's bequest was Edmund Nelson, the grandfather of Admiral Lord Nelson.
The school had ups and downs. There was no secondary education in Swaffham between 1892 and 1895. The need for a school was clear and the trustees proposed a new scheme to the Charity Commissioners. Buildings in Swaffham Market Place were purchased and additions made using the invested additional £500 from Hamond's will. The Hamond's Grammar School Charity was established in 1909 to own and let out the property to the school. The crest of the school is shown in the heading of these web pages. It is based on the crest and arms of the Hamond family.
These premises were used for educational purposes until 2011 when the school (by then a Sixth Form College) was closed by Norfolk County Council. Until then rental income provided the funds to enable the Charity to carry out its aims.
The Charity, having been unable to find an appropriate use for the Market Place premises, was left with no option but to sell them. The proceeds of that sale and of the sale of the school's playing field have been invested to secure the future of the Charity and provide the income to enable the charity to carry on the excellent work started by Nicholas Hamond.
The Hamond name is still associated with the major secondary school in Swaffham, the Nicholas Hamond Academy.
The Hamond Educational Charity in its modern format is a combination of the former Hamond's Grammar School charity and five other scholarship and prize funds: the Bathurst Exhibition, the Bell Scholarship, the William R. Coe Prize Fund, the Henry Lee Warner Prize Fund and the Mueller Trust, brought together under the Charity Commission Scheme of the 4th September 1978, and all having the same aim of supporting the education of the young people of Swaffham and the surrounding district.